CD8+ T cell exhaustion in anti‐tumour immunity: The new insights for cancer immunotherapy.

CD8+ T cells play a crucial role in anti‐tumour immunity, but they often undergo exhaustion, which affects the anti‐tumour activity of CD8+ T cells. The effect and mechanism of exhausted CD8+ T cells have become the focus of anti‐tumour immunity research. Recently, a large number of studies have confirmed that long‐term antigen exposure can induce exhaustion. Cytokines previously have identified their effects (such as IL‐2 and IL‐10) may play a dual role in the exhaustion process of CD8+ T cells, suggesting a new mechanism of inducing exhaustion. This review just focuses our current understanding of the biology of exhausted CD8+ T cells, including differentiation pathways, cellular characteristics and signalling pathways involved in inducing exhaustion, and summarizes how these can be applied to tumour immunotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]